We met at the El Dorado County Government Building at 360 Fair Lane, Placerville CA as guest of our own member Recorder-Clerk Janelle Horne for a tour of her office and we also met two other elected county officeholders and friends of Rotary: Karl Weiland and Brian Frazier.  We also enjoyed a healthy catered lunch by John Sanders of the Old Time Grill in Placerville.

 

The County Assessor, Karl Weiland, told us of the large role that property taxes play in the County's finances.  Three officers, the Assessor, the Auditor and the Tax Collector are involved in determining how much is to be collected from each property and in collecting those taxes.  In 2021 there was more than $38B in assessed value in EDC, and $380M in property taxes paid based on that value.  Brian Frazier told us of the important work done by his office in maintaining subdivision maps, boundary maps road naming and addressing properties.  If you want a reasonably accurate, but not official look at your property's boundaries, he recommended using the link to GOTNET on his department's web page.

 

Recorder Clerk Janelle Horne gave us a detailed tour of her department's offices.  We saw first-hand some of the work that is going on to index and digitize the many kinds of records her office maintains.  At the start of her term, about 65% of their records were digitized, but now more than 90% are. We also got to see how physical changes were made to the office to allow the public to go into one queue to access nearly all types of services, thereby avoiding the need to wait twice to get all their needs met.